--- title: Man Struck By Lightning Wins Lottery description: The odds that Peter McCathie would be struck by lightning and win the lotto are approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion. canonical: https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/ author: Jacob Koffler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-21T16:56:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:22:22.610Z og:title: Canadian Lightning Strike Survivor Wins Lotto og:description: The odds that Peter McCathie would be struck by lightning and win the lotto are approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion. og:url: https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Canadian Lightning Strike Survivor Wins Lotto twitter:description: The odds that Peter McCathie would be struck by lightning and win the lotto are approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Canadian Lightning Strike Survivor Wins Lotto by [Jacob Koffler](https://time.com/author/jacob-koffler/) ## Jacob Koffler Jul 21, 2015 4:56 PM UTC by [Jacob Koffler](https://time.com/author/jacob-koffler/) ## Jacob Koffler Jul 21, 2015 4:56 PM UTC Peter McCathie quite literally defied the [odds](http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/man-who-survived-lightning-strike-wins-1m-jackpot-with-co-worker-1.2478542#). The Canadian man, who was previously struck by lightning when he was 14, collected his Atlantic Lottery winnings on Monday. The odds of being struck by lightning in Canada are less than one in a million. The odds of winning the Atlantic Lotto are one in 13,983,816\. In an incredible turn of events, McCathie’s daughter was also struck by lightning a few years ago while working as a wilderness guide in Manitoba. The odds that all three of those events would happen to the same person are, as a mathematics professor at the University of Moncton told CTV News, approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion. McCathie’s winnings, $1 million, are shared with his co-worker Diana Miller. The two have been buying lottery tickets together for about a year, but McCathie never expected to win. “I honestly expected to get hit by lightning again first,” he told CTV News. McCathie owns the store the ticket was bought in, so he is raking in an additional $10,000 from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. He’ll be spending his winnings on a second honeymoon with his wife of 30 years. _\[_[_CTV News_](http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/man-who-survived-lightning-strike-wins-1m-jackpot-with-co-worker-1.2478542#)_\]_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/"},"headline":"Canadian Lightning Strike Survivor Wins Lotto","datePublished":"2015-07-21T16:56:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:22:22.610Z","description":"The odds that Peter McCathie would be struck by lightning and win the lotto are approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion","url":"https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jacob Koffler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jacob-koffler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3966033/canadian-lightning-strike-survivor-wins-lotto/","name":"Canadian Lightning Strike Survivor Wins Lotto"}}]}] ```